


Cliff Avatars

by Sh1ttyAvatarFanfic



Category: None - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25190449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sh1ttyAvatarFanfic/pseuds/Sh1ttyAvatarFanfic





	Cliff Avatars

The idiots are at it again

I catch this one before it lands on the beach. It's surprisingly heavy — they always are. The weight of all that flesh and bone and sinew and brain and gut and muscle and meat. Lighter from the loss of the thoughts and dreams and hopes. Heavier from the weight of all that it has lost when he stopped being a he and became an it. The stripping of a name and identity  
I had a name. I chose it myself, to become part of a new body I would make myself. It's Oscar, if anyone cares. 

I hoist the meat over my shoulder, make my way down past the rockpools. A fish darts like quicksilver. I pick it up, watch it flounder, then lick my hand clean. In days it will be just another part of me

'Oy!'

I pause, one foot in my bone boat, and look around for the source of the voice that echoes around the vast sea and sky.

'That was my human you've stolen'

Ah. Idiot number one has noticed me. Wonderful.  
My voice isn't quite as loud as theirs, but I shift my voice box and lungs around enough that they'll be able to hear me

'Not yours! Mine!'

'That's not fair! He should have been falling for another week! There should not have been a ground for him to land on! You've plucked him from the sky! Dragged him most terribly from realm of infinite terror! How could you?'

Dear Lord, she's incompetent. She really thought it was working?

'Hold on!' she shouts, 'I'm coming down!'

Then she— she steps off the cliff  
It’s difficult to explain, but the air... moves around her. It doesn’t stretch or twist or expand, the way I expect. It just swirls away, leaves her floating in the sky, and she falls.

What kind of incompetent—

I catch her of course. I fix her broken bones (she won’t notice the missing ones) and try and reduce the bruising. I’ve never saved any of them before, but of course no one else who’s fallen off this cliff has needed me to prove them wrong. And there’s always the fresh supply of meat.  
Though I guess not now.

Something tells me a boat made entirely of bone and sinew would not be the best place to wake up in, so I give up on the idea of going home. I drag her and the carcass out of the wind, and just sit.

Eventually she wakes up. By which I mean, I wake her up by absentmindedly removing slivers of bone from her skull. 

‘You’re a disappointment to the Vast,’ I say, because I don’t want her to think we’re friends. 

‘I’m sorry I don’t know — wait who told you? What’s the Vast? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ 

‘I’m sure you don’t’

I take a long look at her. I know other avatars exist, of course I do. I had a horrible encounter with an avatar of the Desolation at a barbecue one time. A lot of them are just old men, so I guess it’s nice to see someone my age; but I think, on balance, I’m better off without this particular avatar. I get to my feet.

‘Well it was lovely meeting you. I hope to never do so again’

‘Wait! Aren’t you going to explain how you stole Alan here from the Vast?’

‘No’

‘Did you see how long I fell for when I stepped off the cliff? Did I enter the Vast?’

‘No’

‘I didn’t? No, you just didn’t see me. I’m Hannah. Can I have my Alan back now?’

‘He’s not an Alan. He’s not a he. He’s an it and I’m going to carve him up and use the bits to make a monster. Now please let me go.’

She stopped to consider this. I used the time to pack Alan — not Alan, just meat — into something I could carry more easily

‘So I’m just me and you’re just you and he’s just meat’

‘We’re all just meat. Though I like to think I’m a they. I like to think I’m a distance from poor Alan here. Now,’ I didn’t want the poor girl having an epiphany on me, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I have to be going

I guess I’ll have to find a new source of flesh.


End file.
